634 - Models of Contextual Theology

Models of Contextual Theology
By Stephen B. Bevans
Maryknoll, New York, Orbis Books, 1992.146 pp. $16.95.

When theologians in Asia, Africa, and Latin America became aware of the failure of imported theologies to deal adequately with their history and culture, they began to develop their own "indigenous" theologies. But they soon realized that they had to take into account not only the particularity of each culture but also the transformation of that culture under the impact of modern technology and grass-roots struggles for justice and liberation. Thus, the emergence and rapid growth of contextual theologies over the last two decades.

Now these theologies challenge us to recognize the contextual character of all theology. They also raise questions about the ability of our Western theologies to resonate with contemporary experience or to respond to the growing sense of identity of diverse groups in our churches.

In this book, Stephen Bevans invites us to enter into a creative dialogue with the contextualists. Drawing on his rich experience of years as a missionary in the Philippines and his work as professor of historical and doctrinal studies at Catholic Theological Union in Chicago, he provides us with a helpful guide for the exploration of the wide variety of such theologies, based on different perspectives, assumptions, and methods. He accomplishes this by examining five models, illustrating each with two examples representing Western and Third World theologians:

(1): The translation model, which claims that the message of the gospel, expressed in supra-cultural, essential doctrines, is unchanging, but struggles to liberate that message from captivity to Western categories of thought, through the translation of meanings as well as words.

635 - Models of Contextual Theology

(2) The anthropological model, which emphasizes the cultural identity of each Christian. The theologians who employ this model, while taking the Bible and the Christian tradition seriously, also seek for God's self revelation within the values, relational patterns, and concerns of particular cultures.

(3) The praxis model, in which God's presence is manifested not only in the fabric of culture but in the fabric of history, the history of oppressed peoples struggling for liberation. Thus, theology must be done in the context of commitment to action, as a continual dialogue between the heritage of faith and experience in this struggle.

(4) The synthetic model preserves the importance of the gospel message and traditional doctrinal formulations while acknowledging the vital role of culture, the importance of reflective action for change and the need to honor the resources of other cultures and theologies and strives to keep these elements in dialectical tension.

(5) The transcendental model focuses on one's own experience as a person of faith. Assuming that the human mind operates in identical ways in all cultures, it insists on the struggle for authenticity of a particular subject, conditioned by history, geography, and culture.

His presentation of each theologian is very brief, but he gives us a clear picture of each and offers us a valuable guide for doing further exploration on our own. For this reason, I believe this book will prove useful not only for seminary students and pastors but also for lay women and men by providing them with resources for their own creative theological work.

It could also help to move us beyond sterile academic debate about theological method. If we recognize that all theologies are products of the interaction of the gospel message with specific cultures and historical situations and that specific situations might lead to the use of one model rather than another, then we can hope to move ahead only as we focus on learning from each other in dialogue rather than on coming up with the right answer. In a very brief conclusion, Bevan addresses the question, Is one model better than another? While presenting a critique of each model, he insists that each responds to a specific situation. Each is valid, each has distinct advantages. Thus, he calls for "a healthy pluralism." And his final word is: "Within today's world of radical plurality and ambiguity, the best answer to the question can only be: 'It depends on the context'."

I'm not completely satisfied with this answer. In fact, I think his whole discussion serves to raise the question even more sharply. As I would phrase it: How can those of us who find ourselves addressed by a Word from beyond ourselves be faithful to it when that Word defies all our efforts to capture it in our systems of thought and compels us to honor the rich particularity of cultures in transformation? Bevans' book is important because it lays before us the diversity of answers now emerging and warns us not to close off the discussion or limit its

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parameters. He encourages us to seek the truth as we risk being enriched in ongoing encounter and interaction with those who speak differently.

M. Richard Shaull

Swarthmore, PA